Chapter Eighteen :
The Missing Photograph
After school ended Gregory headed reluctantly towards his house. He wasn't sure what to expect, but he was almost certain that Brutus had called his aunt and that he was going to be in a great lot of trouble when she saw him. He was about to his street when someone called his name.
Gregory groaned in aggravation and turned. Justin was stomping angrily towards him, looking quite awkward in his school uniform and with his hair slicked back. He seemed to be trying to purvey intimidation, but his over all appearance demonstrated a prissiness that did absolutely no good for his intentions.
"What do you want Justin?" Gregory asked dully.
" I've come to warn you…"
"Warn me?" Gregory cast a longing look towards the road.
"Yeah…you're the only one who knows about my cousins. I've come to warn you that if you tell anyone, you'll get an even worse beating from them then the Waywards did."
"Wouldn't that just exacerbate the problem?" Gregory asked. His voice was full of weariness.
Justin appeared to think about this, then, after a moment, his eyes narrowed.
"Just remember what I said and stay out of it."
"Whatever…" Gregory said beneath his breath. He turned and started to walk away. Justin glared after him.
"Hey! I'm serious!" Justin started to follow him. "You have to promise not to tell!" Gregory rounded on him. There was a hint of wickedness in his eyes. Justin stopped, appeared to hesitate, then took a few steps forward.
"I mean it…" He said in a low, dangerous voice.
"Why should I?" Gregory asked.
Justin looked taken aback for a moment. He seemed to think about this for a moment. His eyes darted to the ground, back up at Gregory's face, then at something in Gregory's hands. He smiled.
"Because, it would be a shame if Edward found out you stole his tool box…" He darted forward and grabbed it out of Gregory's grasp as he said it.
Gregory grabbed at Justin desperately when he realized what the boy meant to do. Justin took a step back and almost lost his footing. There was an audible click from the boxes poor lock and the ground was sprayed with several tools and a large Photo Album. Both boys stood frozen for a moment.
Gregory spotted the album and lunged for it. Justin followed his gaze, found that he was closer and scooped it up before Gregory got the chance to.
"What's this?" The boy asked.
"Give it back!" Gregory yelled as his fingers tried to close around the spine of the book. Justin leapt backwards and laughed when Gregory tripped over the stack of fallen tools. Gregory glared up at him. He opened his mouth to tell him to shut up, but the words died in his throat when he saw the look of terror on the skinny boys face.
He noticed a shadow had fallen over him and turned his head cautiously. Violet was standing behind him with her arms across her chest and a most malicious grin across her face. She still looked beaten up, but also looked quite capable of dealing a few beatings herself. Her eyes were on Justin.
Justin swallowed.
"I can get them to do it again…you'd better…you'd better leave me alone!" His voice got higher as she started to approach him. When she was three feet away, Justin tried to run away. She put her foot out and tripped him. Justin crashed to the ground. The book flew out of his hands and landed in a ditch nearby.
"I believe you've earned a bit of a beating for last night King…"
"Their still here! I can get them right now!" Justin screamed. Violet grinned.
"Really? Well, we must make sure that that doesn't happen now." She put her foot in the center of Justin's back and stepped downward, rendering him incapable of movement. Behind her Gregory was getting up and brushing himself off.
"Get his shoes Gregory."
Gregory looked up at her in confusion as though wondering if she were talking to him or not. Violet cast him an irritated look.
"Garret!"
"Sorry!" Gregory yelled back. He hurried forward and wrenched Justin's shoes off of his feet. Violet pulled his book bag off and began searching through it furiously. A look of satisfaction crossed her face as she pulled a role of tape from it's depths. Justin was making muffled remarks of fury.
Violet grabbed the collar of Justin's shirt and pulled him onto his feet. She pushed him towards a nearby bench and shoved him onto it. Gregory watched in interest as she proceeded to tape him to the bench. The whole time she did this Justin was screaming for help. (That was, of course, until Violet pulled off one of his socks and shoved it in his mouth, being sure to tape over it, of course.) She took a step back and grinned. Behind her, Gregory drew the old album out of the ditch and brushed the dirt from it's leather cover.
"Don't worry Justin…" Violet said mockingly as the boy glared up at her. "…Bound to be someone who'll come around and let you free…course…it'll have to be someone who doesn't hate you and…your dad walks by here sometimes doesn't he?" She grinned and spun around.
"Give me his shoes." Gregory handed them to her. She took them and tied the shoe laces together. She looked upwards at a telephone pole and swung the shoes around before letting them go, then stood back in satisfaction as they swung neatly around the pole and hung there in suspension.
"By the way Justin…" Violet whispered nastily, while kneeling over the bound boy. "When you see those two ugly brutish cousins of yours, tell them I want my hat back. Come on Gregory." Violet started to head back to the road. Gregory seemed to snap out of a daze and followed her at a hurried pace.
"Give me the album." Violet said the minute he caught up with her. Gregory handed it over. "You should be ashamed Gregory." She said to him with a hint of venom in her voice.
"What? Why?" He answered.
"You have to stupid thing for a few hours and then nearly lose it to Justin King, that's why. The kid weighs what…forty pounds?"
Gregory opened his mouth to tell her that he most certainly had to weigh more then forty pounds, then, thought better of it and closed his mouth again. He needed to remember who he was talking to. Just because she wasn't beating him up now, didn't mean she wasn't perfectly capable of remedying that. He settled for asking her a question.
"So what are you going to do with that album anyway?"
Violet shrugged a little angrily.
"It was your idea to take it! I thought you knew what you were doing." She said in an accusing tone.
"Well, were sure the guy who lives there is a Skellington right?" He asked, trying to sort his own jumbled thoughts out while he spoke.
"I'm not sure of anything. If one of Viktor's kids is still alive, I don't get why the town went to that idiot Jeff King."
Gregory shrugged.
"Maybe he didn't want the town."
"Maybe he's not Jack Skellington."
Gregory stopped.
"But you said he looked just like him. And he does bear a strong resemblance to Hector and Viktor and he still has the album and has added his own pictures to it….don't you think…" Violet put her hand up.
"Shut up Gregory. I was there, remember?" She sighed and opened up the album, flipping through the pages till she came to the three pictures of Hectors kids.
"Suppose he died too?" She asked to no one in particular.
"Who?"
"This ugly red headed kid." Gregory leaned forward and looked at the picture of Beside that of Viktor's.
"I don't know. Maybe it was a mistake…maybe he's…their cousin or something."
Violet was shaking her head.
"He looks too much like Hectors wife to be a cousin." Gregory nodded, he saw the resemblance too.
Violet shook her head and stuffed the album into a worn bag she had been carrying with her earlier that day.
"I guess I can always check it out."
"How?" Gregory asked curiously.
"I don't know…look it up on one of those high tech person finder things, via satellite or something."
Gregory narrowed his eyes.
"You don't have access to that sort of thing." He said.
"Sure I do. Edward downloaded some stuff from Brutus once when he caught us trying to knock his mailbox over and was busy calling Caroline."
"Brutus?"
"Yeah…he used to be some kind of special cop of something or other." Gregory raised his brow.
"Oh…so he…he must have been good at his job…" Gregory said absently, while thinking about the two times he had been in Pumpkin House.
"I don't know about that…never caught us messing with his equipment…rather lousy cop if you ask me…had to be pretty high up to have access to that sort of thing too." She shook her head as though ashamed, which Gregory found extremely ironic.
"Anyway. I can look Skellington up on that."
By then they were nearly to Gregory's house. Violet looked up and noticed that she had already gone past the street to her own. She sighed.
She was about to say something but was interrupted before she got a chance to speak.
"Gregory!" He looked up, startled. His aunt was looking at him angrily, in her arms, Apathy wore a similar look. Gregory cursed his aunt for having found her…he wouldn't have minded a non Apathy life. He rather hated the cat.
Anne cast a dark look to Violet.
"You run along now girly. Don't think I don't remember you. Gregory doesn't need your negative influences!" Gregory scowled and wished, as he had several times before then, that his mother would have had another sister.
Violet looked at the woman oddly and whispered something under her breath that Gregory did not hear, but imagined was quite nasty before nodding to Gregory and heading off to her own house.
Anne walked forward and grabbed Gregory by the arm.
"I got a call from your teacher today. She said you were not in class for the morning."
"Yes well, you see I er…"
"Well…where were you?"
"I um…just…got held up a bit in the morning…that's all." He lied quietly.
"Held up?Gregory that is no way for a promising young boy to behave."
Gregory ignored this.
"You…uh…only got a call from my teacher?" He asked hesitantly.
"Yes…" Anne looked at him suspiciously. "Why?"
"No reason." Gregory said hurriedly.
Anne seemed to consider this then nodded.
"You will be punished for this, Gregory…be sure of that. Up to your room now. I don't expect you down for the rest of the night." Gregory nodded, just eager to get away. Mentally he cursed his teacher…but still, Brutus hadn't told! Not yet anyway, until then, all he could be accused of was skipping out on a bit of his morning classes.
"Oh, by the way Gregory." Anne said from behind him. He turned.
"Mr. King has invited us over to his house for dinner tomorrow afternoon."
"What?" Gregory asked, a little shocked.
"He thinks it'd be good for the two of you boys. He seems to think you two are really getting along."
Gregory thought of Justin, taped to the bench on the way from school and smiled a little in amusement.
"Yeah…uh…should be fun." He said innocently before turning and walking up to his room.
When he closed the door behind him, he sighed in relief. Why had Jeff invited them to dinner? He felt a little wary of this. The man had seen that him and Justin obviously didn't get along…and he thought Jeff hated him.
"Wonder what he's up to." Gregory whispered to himself. But then, why should he be up to anything? Gregory's eyes fell on an disturbingly empty space on his desk. He frowned.
"That's odd…"
Finally! Well, tomorrows my last day of school (Hurray!) Then I'll have plenty of time to update these stories. (Although it would be rather nice to have a life this summer as well.) I seriously need to finish them…it's been a long time since I started. Oh well. Updates soon! Thank you for your reviews!
